


Orange Flames (To Light Up Your Enemies)

by demitas



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Renegade Shepard (Mass Effect)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-11-27 08:17:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20945207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demitas/pseuds/demitas
Summary: Shepard and Aria investigate an explosion. Shepard looks pretty good covered in blood.





	Orange Flames (To Light Up Your Enemies)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Asymptotical](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asymptotical/gifts).

Aria T'Loak was having a normal conversation with Shepard - that is, she was sprawling in suggestive ways and watching Shepard become increasingly hot under the collar - when the explosion happened. 

Shepard turned in the direction it had come from. "Was that... the lab?"

A call came in on Aria's comm. "Aria, we have a situation."

"This had better be about that explosion," Aria snapped.

"Yeah, about that - there's a new merc group that's taken over the lab."

"Well, kill them. Why does this need my attention?"

"They, uh, they have Shepard's crew."

"Excuse me?" Shepard demanded. Damn, her cybernetics must have picked up the signal. 

"How did your crew get captured, Shepard?" Aria taunted. "I thought they were professionals?"

"Oh, that's it," Shepard said, and she launched herself out of the nice den where she and Aria had been flirting. Aria sighed and followed after her. It was silly to dirty her own hands with this, but... maybe worth it to see Shepard in action.

Aria brought her gun, but Shepard was killing things before they got anywhere near her. She could almost just saunter down the hallway in Shepard's wake, watching the bodies fall around her, but after she got a feel for Shepard's style, she fell into place beside her and started racking up her own numbers.

It was actually pretty entertaining. She hadn't had a good round of target practice in a while, and watching Shepard in action was Doing Things for her.

"Do you need me to add you to the leaderboard?" Shepard asked when Aria stole one of Shepard's kills. "You'll have a ways to go to catch up with Garrus and me."

"Why am I not surprised that you and Archangel have a kill tally?"

"Because you know us?"

Aria didn't bother to stifle a laugh and took out another of the mercs. Where did these guys even come from? The whole merc situation had been under control for months, but there certainly wasn't a shortage of bodies coming at them.

Finally they reached the lab. The mechs that the Salarian doctor had used to guard against intruders were mostly gone; a few remained, hacked to attack Shepard and Aria. Between the two of them, the mechs were out in seconds; the mercs didn't take much longer. Shepard wounded the last one standing in the lab and vaulted the lab table to grab him by the neck.

"Where is my team?" she demanded, and Aria's mouth went dry. 

The last mercenary pointed down a corridor, and Shepard dropped him unceremoniously on the floor. She didn't finish the guy off, but Aria had no such compunctions, and put him out of his misery with one bullet. Shepard looked back at her and Aria was sure for a moment that she was going to spoil the moment by being self-righteous or something, but instead she just shrugged and continued down the corridor.

Shepard's team was in the room at the end, unguarded. What sort of idiots didn't put guards on Shepard's team? Sure, they were unconscious, but that was just a level of stupid Aria would never have put up with in her own mercs. 

Shepard did a quick check with her omnitool and verified that everyone on her team was still alive.

"Drugged," Shepard said. "But it looks like they'll be fine."

Aria stepped in closer toward Shepard, who looked at her with a mixture of wariness and desire - exactly the response Aria always liked in the women she took to bed. 

"You've got a little blood, right here," she said, reaching out with a fingertip to wipe the corner of Shepard's mouth. Three colors of blood on her face, standing in a room with her unconscious team members, and Aria wanted her more than she'd wanted anyone in her life besides Nyreen. This was probably a similarly bad idea, but she was going for it, anyway.

A light dawned in Shepard's eyes. "You were doing that on purpose?" she asked. "The- the sprawling thing, and the leaning thing, you were flirting?"

"Wow, Shepard, they said you were smart, but you're not real quick on the uptake, are you?"

"Mmhmm," Shepard said. "Extremely slow. You might need to show me what you mean with a little more... force."

Aria laughed and pulled her in by the belt on her armor. "Oh, I think I can manage that."


End file.
